hankyoreh

Nguyễn Thị Thanh, a survivor of Korea’s massacres in Vietnam, smiles as she holds a bouquet given to her by young Koreans on Feb. 12 celebrating her victory in a suit suing the Korean government for compensation. (Shin Da-eun/The Hankyoreh)

From the early morning that day, time seemed to go by very slowly. She woke up quite early, she said, but her “mind was not at ease at all.”

Nguyễn Thị Thanh, 63, watered the garden at her home in the Vietnamese city of Đà Nẵng. She stopped by the market to buy some groceries and then went home to cook.

But by around noon, she could no longer concentrate on her work. Over in South Korea at the same on Feb. 7, the Seoul Central District Court was holding a hearing to deliver its ruling on a suit that she had filed claiming damages from the South Korean government as a survivor of a civilian massacre by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War.

As an 8-year-old in 1968, Nguyễn had lost five family members and been hospitalized with bullet wounds in a massacre that took place in the villages of Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất.

She spent around an hour and a half just staring nervously at her phone. It remained quiet until a call finally came through.

“Thắng lợi! Thắng lợi! We won!” cried Kwon Hyun-woo, secretary general of the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation.

Nguyễn found herself repeating after him: “Thắng lợi.” She explained later, “I was so overcome by joy that I could not express it in words.”

That day, Judge Park Jin-su of the Seoul Central District Court’s 68th civil affairs division ordered the Republic of Korea to pay Nguyễn the amount of 30,000,100 won. It was the first-ever ruling to acknowledge the South Korean military’s responsibility for the massacre of Vietnamese civilians.

“I’m so happy that our legal battle has been recognized as the truth,” Nguyễn explained at her home on Sunday. That day, young South Koreans with the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation stopped by there to present her with celebratory flowers.

Nguyễn Thị Thanh, a survivor of Korea’s massacres in Vietnam, and witness of the massacre Nguyên Đức Choi smiles as Koreans with the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation deliver congratulatory flowers for Thanh’s court win on Feb. 12. (Shin Da-eun/The Hankyoreh)

Since arriving in 2015 as the first victim of a Vietnamese civilian massacre to visit South Korea, she had traveled there four times in all to raise awareness of the events that had transpired.

“In the beginning, I just expected [the South Korean government] would obviously apologize,” she recalled.

“But the veterans wouldn’t give any credence to what I said. They said, ‘She was 8 at the time, what would she know?’” she added.

“All I wanted was an ‘I’m sorry,’ and it was terrible not to hear that.”

After launching her lawsuit to claim damages in April 2020, Nguyễn was sometimes worn down by her schedule in South Korea, including the constant meetings with attorneys, press conferences, and testimony in court.

“After I finished testifying, I felt completely wiped out,” she said. “I thought, ‘This is all I can do.’”

At moments like that, she thought of others who had testified to the truth. She thought of veteran Han Gi-jung, who had kneeled in apology before her; fellow veteran Ryu Jin-seong, who had affirmed that “everything you said is true” and recalled how he had seen the victims’ bodies lying along the side of the road; and Gil Won-ok and Kim Bok-dong, survivors of sexual slavery by the Japanese military, who had embraced her tightly on her South Korea visit in 2015 and told her that they “shared the experience of suffering in war.”

As she named all the individual people who had helped her, Nguyễn explained, “What has gotten me this far is the support from all the people who have been there with me and from South Korea’s civil society.”

“I’m not interested in the money,” she said of the court-ordered compensation. “All I want is an acknowledgment and apology from the South Korean government.”

“As I listened to the ruling, I thought, ‘The judge has listened to what the victims have to say,’” she continued.

She also shared her hope that the ruling leads to more than just good news for her. The Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation estimates the number of victims in civilian massacres by South Korean troops in Vietnam at around 10,000.

“There are still so many civilian massacres besides the ones in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất that have not yet been investigated, including ones in Hà My and Quảng Ngãi Province,” she said.

“I hope the South Korean government will waste no time and investigate these incidents and apologize to the victims. I’d like to see the victims be comforted in that way.”

By Shin Da-eun, Hankyoreh 21 staff reporter

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